Me Myself & I
by Sublimey
Summary: In which someone forgets their kid at a birthday party, Harry gets adopted by the antichrist, the mafia gets involved thanks to a plastic lawn flamingo, and Voldemort is forcibly taught the power of friendship on a journey to the end of the world.
1. The Queen Of France Does Not Get Beheade

_**AN:**_ _It's my birthday! so I'm posting three fics to celebrate. Check my profile for the others._ _a quick note, this fic is not a Harry/oc fic, or a love triangle, if you look at the pairing tag, but I do have Plans. Any romance in the future is going to be buried under several layers of slowburn, stupidity and humor, but it'll be there, eventually. Let's just see how far this goes, shall we?_

 **Word count:** 4,136

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 **Chapter One - The Queen Of France Does Not Get Beheaded**

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On days like Dudley's birthday, Harry was given a list of things to do and what not to do; told very clearly by the Dursleys that if he broke one of those rules, or interrupted Dudley's big day with any _funny business_ , he would pay for it dearly.

And of course that meant anything and everything to do with the many unexplained and numerous things that happened around Harry James Potter.

It wasn't a really complicated list—and it wasn't anything different from any of the other rules the Dursleys gave him, no less arbitrary or confusing than any other day of the week. It was the _expectation_ on that particular day that meant Harry had to follow along, otherwise he'd be shut in the cupboard under the stairs and left to suffer the sounds of an obnoxiously loud birthday party while he sat in the dark, _alone_.

If it weren't for the fact that aunt Petunia watched him like a hawk, and uncle Vernon's temper was on a hare trigger today, he could probably get away with a couple moments to himself. As it was, he had been woken up early in the morning and was cooking them breakfast, two hours before Dudders would probably even roll out of bed.

Today was a special occasion though, even more special than last year or the year before (or so aunt Petunia had said, many times, and would say many more). Today was Dudley's _tenth_ birthday, which apparently meant a great deal to them, and also meant unlawful suffering for Harry the entire month as the date grew closer.

"The eggs better not be black when I dig into them, _boy,_ " Vernon warned, eyeing Harry as he set down his plate.

Harry padded back to the kitchen before he'd get yelled at for loitering, another few eggs still cooking on the burner. He stifled a yawn as he picked up the spatula, and rubbed his eyes. It far too early in the morning for this.

For a moment, the room was quiet, other than the sounds of Vernon digging into his food and the general russleing from his morning paper, but as Petunia came downstairs and the TV switched on, that silence was broken. Vernon grunted loudly. "I'm _missing_ something."

"Right, _sorry_." Harry reached up into the top cabinet to grab a cup for his coffee. The top shelf was pretty high up there, and is arms were just a tad too short, but Harry was sure that if he reached hard enough…

 _The nearest cup wobbled towards on its own, nearing his fingers, ever so close..._

"What did we _tell you?!_ "

Petunia pinched his ear and _yanked_ , catching him just before he managed to grasp the cup, and it fell to the floor in pieces. She took a swift step back, dragging Harry with him, and ignored the popping bacon on the stove and Vernon's angry rumbles in favor of chewing Harry out.

"Of all the days today, you had to pick this one to be a nuisance? We can't ask for a single day without you and your—your—" she spluttered, letting go of Harry's ear as if he burned her. Her expression was pinched, and her eyes narrowed into slits. She gestured to the floor. "Pick it up before you break something else!"

"Yes aunt Petunia." He watched her stride into the dining room as he picked up the broken china, and tried to drown out the sound of uncle Vernon calling him a no-good freakish nightmare, in favor of doing what they wanted so he could get out of there sooner rather than later.

"—and watch the stove, boy!"

Vernon's face was quickly approaching a shade of light purple as the eggs sizzled, and the air smells slightly of burnt plastic. Harry stood up with a jolt, only to be pushed aside by Petunia after she had dubbed him too much of a liability to cook anymore.

"If our Dudley's day is ruined, after all those days of planning and organizing… you'll be paying for it dearly." Petunia warned, spatula in hand as she viciously unstuck the bacon seared to the metal.

Petunia passed Vernon a fresh mug and filled it coffee as they decided what to do with him. "The party's at noon, we cant put him in the cupboard, what will the other parents think? What if he makes a noise? No, there's got to be something—"

"He wouldn't dare make a fuss," Vernon threatened, eyes boring into his. "Isn't that right?"

"Right," Harry repeated, if only to end this interaction and hopefully minimize whatever it was they were planning for him. Really, Harry would take anything other than being here, in this moment, with the shards of a broken mug still in his hands, painting him like the degenerate, no good in-law he seemed to be.

Petunia flipped a fat piece of bacon, and it popped in the grease and oil. "There's always the sitter…"

Harry repressed a shudder at the thought of being left at the neighbors if he was also facing the prospect of solitary confinement, being tended to by one of the old women down the street, with too many cats and a just as equally bizarre mannerisms as the Dursleys, was something to be desired. No, cupboard time was much preferred.

"Mummy!" Cried Dudley's voice from upstairs, prompting Petunia to abandon her breakfast in favor of soothing the birthday boy, who had been woken up by all the shouting.

Harry dumped the broken pieces of the mug into the trash and moved to turn down the stove so the house didn't burn down. Truthfully, it would have saved him quite the hassle, but Harry knew somehow that it'd be blamed on him, and he didn't want to think about whatever punishment the Dursleys would come up with if that was the case. Though, from the look on uncle Vernon's face as he watched Harry from the dining room table, whatever was going on in his head wasn't pretty, and all he had done so far was break a mug and forget his coffee.

Somehow, he should have expected his newest task to be weeding the garden, in the rain, while they set up party decorations, but Harry was beyond being surprised by this point and rolled with it. At the very least, it meant he had a moment to himself, and wouldn't have to be in the same room as them.

But then again, it was _raining_ , and Petunia was very particular about the state of her garden, and the last time she had instructed him to look after her rose bushes, he hadn't gotten dinner for a week because he accidentally taken off a bit too much off the top. This time however, he was intent on doing the bare minimum, a passing grade, just barely enough so that he wouldn't end up starving into nothingness like last time.

The awning provided little protection against the rain, and he heard the first partygoers pull up on the other side of the house. Harry wondered if this was just going to be is life now, until forever. Surely until he hit eighteen, and was an adult himself, but the idea of living under the Dursleys rule for so long sent a shiver through Harry's frame, that no rain or cold could beat.

He shook it off, however, and burned his hands in the dirt, picking away weeds and tossing them to the side. There were a dozen other garden pots littered throughout the backyard, and the job seemed endless, stretching into a miserable, sodden infinity, until his fingers came in contact of some lump in the ground, and he dug it up without a word.

It seemed like a rock at first—hard in some places, soft in others-but eventually some of the earth fell away and Harry found himself looking at a small brown band. Upon closer inspection, he wiped away the dirt on the side of his pants and found himself holding a small gold wedding band, which looked a bit worse for wear. It was well-worn in places and on the inside had some sort of inscription, but it was too caked with dirt to tell.

Aunt Petunia hardly seemed the type to go around burying long-forgotten jewelry, although he hardly had any other explanation as to why it'd be there. Just as he picked away at some of the grime coating the inside of the ring, the back door slid open, and he hastily slipped it into his pocket.

"Hey, did you know they're setting up a pinata in the living room? Seems like someone's asking for a hole in the wall if you asked me."

A girl stood in the doorway, dressed in a knitted purple sweater and finley pressed pants. Harry didn't recognize her from any of the kids he and Dudley went to school with, and he hadn't expected anyone other than one fo the Dursleys to find him outside, so he stood there awkwardly and stared at her, not quite knowing what to say or do.

"Uhhhh…." Besides tending to the garden, his only other job had been to stay out of sight. Failing that, he could at least try and convince her to go back to the party, in case they noticed somone missing. "Can I help you?"

"I think the question is, can _I_ help _you_?" the girl said in a huff, worriedly looking over her shoulder to the party going on inside. "I hope you know a good repairman, because that many kids with sticks is a recipe for disaster. I think Isaw a _real_ wooden bat in there... I hope Mrs. Dunkle knows what she's doing."

Harry's face twitched for a moment. "Excuse me?"

"Mrs Dumpley? Sorry, I'm not very good with names." She confessed, before sitting down on the backyard steps. She put both elbows on her knees and stared at him like he was the most interesting person in the world. "Though, I'll have you know, more often than not they don't even really matter. I mean, who gives a shit in the long run? It's all irrelevant. We're all just specks of dust in the grand scheme of things, on a marble hurtling through space at hundreds of miles an hour. You don't see trees getting pissed off by getting called the wrong name, do you?"

Harry supposed she made a point, sort of. Then she pointed at one of the nearby trees in the garden.

"That one's a spruce. The one next to it is a pear tree, but of course that's not its _whole_ name, just what people decided to call it. There's thirty different species of pear in the world, but people use pear as a blanket term for all of them, because language is exhausting and remembering all thirty different Latin names is pointless in the end, because one pear tree to another pear tree is just another pear tree, in a long line of pear trees in someone's lifetime. Names are just things." She paused for a moment, before snapping her fingers. "It was Dirkless, right? They seem like a Dirk kind of family."

He took a second look at her, trying to make sense of the reason why she was out here talking to him, instead of doing… anything at all, really. "Are you one of Dudley's friends?"

She certainly didn't look like it. Her face was round and soft looking, and her dark brown hair gently curled around her face in soft waves, that seemed more like it had been styled or set, with far more energy put into her appearance than any of the public school kids Harry of Dudley knew. She was around the right age, but her slate grey eyes had a spark of intelligence to them that seemed to reek of a private school upbringing, or… something else entirely.

"Who?" She blinked at him, and Harry wondered if she was just a stranger who wandered from the street.

Stepping a little closer, because the rain was starting to soak through his clothes and his glasses were starting to fog up, he shuffled under the awning and closer to the girl sitting in front of him. Harry glanced into the house when the sound of cheering met his ears. Someone had broken open the pinata.

He decided to throw her a bone. "He's the one having the party, and the one with the bat."

"Oh! Party boy, yeah, yeah okay." The girl looked over her shoulder again as the rest of the kids pounced on the candy spilling out onto the floor, stuffing their face with sweet piñata innards and laughing to themselves. She looked back at Harry and seemed to weigh the pros and cons to admitting how out of place she was, before confessing; "I have no idea who any of these people are."

He looked at her with a confused expression. "Then what are you doing here at the party?"

If it were up to him, Harry would be halfway to hawaii or literally anywhere else. He didn't understand why anyone would come if they knew what the durseleys were _really_ like, instead of the performative, perfect neighbor persona they used whenever Harry wasn't the topic of conversation. Maybe her parents had dragged her over? If that was the case, Harry felt a deep sense of sympathy towards the girl. Being forced to do things he had no interest in was basically the sum of his nine years on planet earth.

"I dunno, I guess it just seemed like the place to be," she said, shrugging. Behind her, two children fought over the shredded remains of the paper pony, while another screamed and chanted, his face full of chocolate ' _I've got his leg! I've got his leg!_ '

"Who are you…. again?" He ignored the sound of the party inside, shoving both hands into his pockets. One hand brushed the side of the ring in his pocket, and he turned it over in his fingers as he waited for a reply.

The girl seemed to struggle for a moment, her grey eyes blinking up to him, before she shrugged and got up from the stairs. "I'm anyone I need to be."

"Right…"

As if that wasn't weird or mysterious or anything.

She turned and padded into the kitchen, with Harry following close behind. The rest of the children and adults were distracted by the sound of Dudley and some other kid fighting over which one of them got to keep the decapitated pony head (obviously, such treasures belonged to the birthday boy).

Harry watched her as she started looking for something in the fridge. Worrying that he'd end up getting in trouble in case anything went missing, or broke, he tried to intervene. "Okay, uh do you need help with something? Because if aunt Petunia comes in here and finds that you've been—and you know, I'm sure there's going to be cake at some point, you could always go join them…"

"Oh shit I forgot about desert," she said, and promptly shut the fridge behind her. In her arms, however, was a large can of whipped cream that she seemed to shake ominously. She looked at him with an approving gaze. "Do you want a big piece or a little piece? I mean, I'm probably going to have to rip the cake out of the pudgy guy's hands before he can properly eat it all, but like, it's not like its his _birthday_ or anything."

He blinked at her, for a second, before putting together what she just said. He winced, and scratched the back of his head with one dirty hand. "Um, I'm probably not allowed to have any cake."

"What? Why not?" And then Harry regretted his words, because it was as if some great injustice had been done, and the girl looked at him and then over to his relatives with a thunderous expression. "Who says you can't have any cake?"

"Well, uh, my Aunt and Uncle…" Harry turned back to the party, slightly surprised that nobody had seen them yet, or had yelled at them not-so-secretly to get out of the house with his muddy shoes on.

The girl shook her whipped cream can vigorously, and sprayed a small portion into her mouth as she narrowed her eyes, somehow making the action seem rather threatening.

"What the hell kind of people keep cake like that to themselves? No, this is a crime. An injustice most foul. Harry—" She turned to him with a fire in her eyes, and it was enough to make him forget the fact that he hadn't actually given her his name. "I have seen all, I have heard all, and I have forgotten all, but this such acts as this cannot go unpunished."

Now he was completely lost. Was she quoting someone? He took a step between her and the party going on, praying that they'd stay unnoticed, and somehow escape punishment, as if this strange girl would absolutely make things worse for him.

"Please, don't, you really don't have to do anything. Cake isn't even my thing anyway," he lied, panic rising in his chest. "Besides, I don't even know who you are."

"Call me Marie Antoinette, kid," she said, rolling up her sleeves as she stepped around him too fast for him to follow. Aunt Petunia had taken out the dessert knife and was passing out the plates as uncle Vernon brought out the ice cream, and for a moment, Harry's heart stopped, as the bubbling fear that something was about to go horribly, horribly wrong. The girl turned back at him and winked. "And you shall have _your cake_."

And then she chucked her full can of whipped cream into the chandelier above them, and it _exploded in a shower of sparks and dairy._

Aunt Petunia _screamed,_ Dudley reared back in his chair. A chorus of high pitched wails echoed through the house from the collection of kids and adults who had no idea going on. The walls were coated in frothy white cream, and the can itself broke on impact and _shattered._

Harry was left standing in shock as the perpetrator walked up in the middle of the chaos, while everyone wiped at their eyes and sobbed in confusion. She grabbed herself a slice of cake, wrapped it in a paper towel, and tucked it into her pocket.

Marie Antoinette, with her wordly grace and power, grinned at him from the table, unnoticed despite the ugly chaos surrounding her revolutionary form.

"See? _Easy_."

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Harry was shoved roughly into the cupboard by a very purple looking Vernon, spitting profanities and covered in whipped cream. The moment the door slammed behind him and the lock slid into place, Harry sat in a moment of dumbfounded shock, trying to piece together what just happened.

He could still hear shuffling of some of the children and adults as they collected themselves and made their trips to the sink and the bathrooms to clean themselves up, and while a couple people laughed to try and ease the tension, absolutely none of them would be able to forget what just happened. Dudley's birthday wasn't just ruined, it had been assassinated.

He heard someone approach his cupboard door, and he braced himself for another slew of insults and threats he very much knew his relatives meant, now that the absolute worst had happened, but instead they never came.

The door opened just a tad but faltered when the lock kept it from opening further. The girl from before peered into the dark, spotting Harry as he sat in shock on his mattress on the floor. "So, are you like, hiding now?"

"What? No!" he hissed, crawling over to the door. How was it that she didn't even have any whipped cream on her? She was right in the middle of ground zero when it happened! "They think I'm the one who did it! Why did you even throw the entire can?!"

"I told you, some crimes cannot go unpunished," she sniffed, seeming to take his anger to heart. "Besides, anyone in the company of royalty deserves respect. Their behavior was completely unacceptable."

"Royalty?" Harry scoffed, looking at her. "You're out of your mind."

"It's true," she urged, not at all put off by his tone. "I told you I was Marie Antoinette, I even got your cake for you and everything."

And with that, she took the slightly crumpled cake out of her pocket and jammed it through the crack in the cupboard. It fell into his hands with a wet plop, slightly dripping with melted whipping cream and icing. Harry didn't know what to say.

"You're welcome," she said smugly, seeming quite proud of herself. She looked down the hallway as someone raised their voice and then started crying. "Well, in the grand scheme of things, it sure could have been worse."

In the darkness of his cupboard, Harry looked up at her dubiously. "How…?"

"Well, I could have gotten decapitated, for one." She drew a finger across her throat for good measure, seeming oddly cheerful about it. "That's what they did to the other Marie Antoinette, you know? Though her mistakes were less whipped cream related and more to do with the fact that the French revolutionaries wanted a scapegoat and she was the perfect example of the corrupt bourgeoisie ruling-class, in her fine clothes and expensive dresses, lording over the humble proletariat in a time of economic disaster."

"What."

Marie shrugged and hardly seemed bothered by his lack of response. "It's a fitting cautionary tale. Then again, we've already had first blood spilled and a beheading in the form of the pinata so I guess that'll do for now."

Harry opened his mouth to answer that, somehow. What remained of Dudley's cake dripping onto his pants and onto the floor. "Um—"

And in a moment, she was gone, replaced only with the thudding, heavy steps of uncle Vernon approaching, and the cupboard door falling back into place. With a start, Harry froze, realizing that getting caught with cake in his hands would definitely not do him any favors, so he did the first thing that came to mind, and turned around and shoved it into his pillowcase.

"Out!" uncle Vernon ordered, and a second later the door swung open. Harry stumbled out into the hallway, to face the remainder of the party people as they stood in various states of sticky and or wet. The vein on uncle Vernon's throat seems to jump under his skin, and he seemed like he was barely keeping himself together in front of all the people. He turned to Harry, and his eyes were like molten suns. "Apologize. Now."

Robotically, Harry turned to the people by the door, and (with Vernon's hand on his back, forcing him) he inclined his head, and said with as much earnestness as an innocent person could muster when threatened with a penalty of terrible suffering and death, apologized. "I'm very sorry I ruined everything today. I don't know what I was thinking."

Uncle Vernon hardly seemed pleased, but he couldn't exactly bring out his most severe planned punishments with twelve witnesses standing by. By the way, Aunt Petunia was nervously, yet angrily hovering nearby, it looked like she was counting down the seconds in which the guests left so they could deal with their little problem themselves.

In the pit of his stomach, Harry knew with a sinking feeling he wasn't going to live this one down for a while.

As the rest of the guests turned to leave and gave their shakey goodbyes to the Dursleys and Dudley, who still seemed rather shocked by the whole event, Harry watched with an iron grip on his arm as every last one possible witness to his inevitable demise walked out the door.

(And among them, not once did he see a trace of that strange girl.)

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	2. Marie And The Art Of No Touching

**AN:** A beefier chapter than usual, but enjoy! also, please leave me reviews if you can! they really do help me keep writing, even if they are short and sweet.

 **Word count:** 5,000

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Chapter Two - Marie And The Art Of Not Touching Anything

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If Harry had known the meaning of the word hell before Dudley's tenth birthday, he was sorely mistaken; the next couple days afterward was worse than he could have imagined.

Click. The lightbulb above Harry's bed flickered on, and a small shower of dust fell on him as he struggled to sit up.

There were only a few precious moments Harry had to himself the past week; the Dursley's had made true on their promises and threats, and he had been picking up after Dudley and working night and day to appease them since the whole whipped cream incident. And he had done his best to stay out of trouble, honest.

It wasn't like it was his fault anyway, but no matter what he told Aunt Petunia, she still grounded him 'for life!' she had said, and he was still put to bed without dinner for the next couple of days. He wasn't even sure how long the punishments would last, or the starvation, but they had him working on the house and doing chores so hard he barely had the energy to complain.

And it was all because of that girl...

Honestly, if the Dursley's had known who she was or even made mention of her, Harry's life would have been a whole lot easier. But as it was, living life as Harry James Potter just wasn't easy, because of course the Dursley's had to blame him, because of course, he had something to do with it. Without blaming him, their whole world might crumble down, and he couldn't have that, could he?

Truly, he was doing them a favor. When the days of perfect boy Dudley ended and Harry was free to live his life far away from his relatives, then they would learn what life would be like without him. Then, they would look back and realize the sacrifices he made to keep their world turning. Harry, by all accounts, was a saint. His one failing was that nobody knew, and nobody cared.

"Yeah right."

Harry rolled his eyes as he peeled his blankets off him, and picked a piece of frosting out of his hair. He looked at the remains of Dudley's birthday cake for a moment and then sighed. He was still pretty sure he smelled like whipped cream since the birthday party, and Dudley was having another one this weekend to make up for the one before.

They were going to the waterpark outside of Surrey, and on a shockingly unanimous vote, everyone had elected to leave Harry at home for the day. Harry hadn't been surprised. From the look in Uncle Vernon's eyes, any argument would have been met with contempt and complete dismissal. In the eyes the Dursleys, Vernon was Judge, jury, and executioner in all things related to Harry's hopes and dreams; he was basically already their prisoner. So, as any good prisoner doing eighteen years to life, Harry nodded his head, stayed in his lane, and hoped he wouldn't get any more solitary confinement.

By the time he had crawled out of the cupboard under the stairs, the Dursley's had already left in the car and abandoned him; which, for any kid other than harry, would have been terrifying, but came at great relief. There was a long list of chores taped the wall outside written in Aunt petunia's handwriting, and he didn't forget the similar, scathing orders from his uncle given to him the night before, but with time to burn, Harry made his way towards the kitchen to get something to eat.

Having to skip supper for the past couple days was starting to wear on him, and as he opened the fridge door, he found a tiny plate with burnt scrambled eggs shoved to the side with his name written on it.

As he pulled it out and put it into the microwave, Harry tried to figure out if this meant aunt petunia cared enough for his well being, or if Dudley just hadn't liked his breakfast that morning; but then the timer went off and he was too concerned with eating than really worrying about it.

The list of chores he had to do before the Dursley's came back was long and overly complicated, and he found his breakfast gone before he knew it, hardly at all satisfying. He put his dishes in the sink and washed up before he padded back to his cupboard to change clothes. He put on one of Dudley's oversized sweatshirt and reached for the one pair of pants that really fit him (with a belt, the only belt the Dursley's had ever given him, if only to keep him from embarrassing them when his pants fell down in public) He found himself strangely drawn to one of the pockets.

With everything going on, he had forgotten about the small treasure he found in the garden. Now, in the proper light, Harry knew he was holding someone's wedding band. But why hide it in someone's garden?

After he finished getting dressed, he stuffed the chore list into his pocket and made his way to the bathroom to clean off the dirt on the ring. On the inside, the dirt washed away to reveal delicate inscriptions, worn away from years of wear and tear, but now that he had time he could make out the letters 'Tog' and 'forev'. the rest was too far gone for him to tell.

Strange. Harry couldn't recall any Eva p's, nor could he remember anyone in the house ever mentioning something called 'evap'. Perhaps it came from the people who lived in the house before them? though, Harry wasn't around then to tell if they were the kinds of folk who buried their wedding bands in the dirt. Wouldn't aunt petunia have come across it before him?

There was a knock at the door then, startling Harry, and tucked the band back into his pocket to go see what was the matter. He expected the sitter to come by since Vernon had promised him that he'd have Mrs. Figg stop by to keep an eye on him, but instead the person standing at their door was none other than the girl from before. Marie Antoinette.

"U—um..." Harry stared at her dumbly, not sure what he was expected to say. "Can I help you?"

The queen of France gave him a funny, look, and crossed her arms over her chest. She was wearing the same purple sweater as the day of the party. "Does everyone ask the same question around here, or is that just you?"

"Sorry?" Harry blinked, not sure how he just offended her. She shook her head in response.

Without a word, she pushed her way inside and into the hallway, leaving Harry to stand and stare at her in shock. "I take it the Units are away? Funny how that is, letting you stay home alone while they go out hunting and gathering. In the old days, you'd be eaten by a saber tooth tiger or left to fend the elements all on your own. That's like, basically murder, isn't it?"

Harry was starting to get the feeling she was always going to say weird things like this. He shut the door behind him. "What did you call them this time?"

Marie padded down the hallway, not boring to take off her shoes, and poked her head into the living room to look around. "You know, Parental units? Like, they come in pairs and everyone has them, they're a bit like robots if you ask me. Empty inside, Autonomous, always working on a track as if everything Is predetermined. I'm pretty sure if you look hard enough for yours, you can see a few screws missing."

He watched her walk over to the TV and turn it on, falling into Vernon's chair without a care in the world. If Harry had done that while the Dursleys were home, they'd have given him the belt or shut him in the cupboard for a week. His face darkened. "Yeah, you're probably right."

Marie paid him no mind as he came to sit down next to her, and she scooched over since there was more than enough room enough for the both of them. After flicking through a couple of channels, she sighed and threw back her head. "there's like, five channels to watch here, that's so boring."

"Tell me about it," Harry muttered as he took the remote from her.

The weather channel was about as entertaining as watching paint dry, but at least it was better than the other shows on; nothing really good played in the morning anyway, and the Dursley's would be back a little afternoon. He watched her get up and approach the screen when it flickered a bit and sighed to himself.

"You won't be able to fix it—just leave the antennae alone and hope for the best, it's not like there's anything interesting on anyway."

She shot him a flat look, and reached up to the antennae, ignoring him. Harry winced and scrambled up to stop her, because if those were off and the TV was broken, the Dursleys really would know he was watching the TV, and they'd ground him even more,but the second she poked them with her finger, the channels changed and the TV was suddenly blaring some action movie with full color and not a single glitch.

A man in a clean suit walked out from the darkness, his eyes glinting with a hate-filled glee. "No Mr. Bond, I expect YOU to die!" and a hail of bullets rained down on the hero as he dove out of harm's way, heart in his throat.

Harry was on the edge of his seat, enthralled before the channel changed to something else and he cried out. "Hey! I was watching that.

"Sorry," Marie looked down at the TV screen as the channels switched again, her hands still fiddling with the Antennae. "I've seen that one so many times."

Without the remote, Harry had no idea how she was doing what she was doing, but as another show came on he was hardly bothered. He leaned back into Vernon's chair.

It was a scene from a dark crime drama, with a cop on the edge, turned bad. Mafia style. The scene was set and the movie was already on its way, the narrator spoke over the action going on.

"You know, we always called each other Goodfellas. Like you said to, uh, somebody, "You're gonna like this guy. He's all right. He's a good fella. He's one of us." You understand? We were Goodfellas. Wiseguys. But Jimmy and I could never be made because we had Irish blood. It didn't even matter that my mother was Sicilian. To become a member of a crew you've got to be one hundred percent Italian so they can trace all your relatives back to the old country..."

The channel changed again, and Harry's mouth opened, outraged. "That one was fine! you didn't have to change it."

"Whoops? Maybe I can go back...?" She fiddled around more with the antennae, but couldn't find the channel again. After five minutes, and Harry getting up to try and help her, they gave up and settled for a newer one Harry hadn't seen yet.

A confused Megan Mcallister turned to one of her brothers, caught off guard by his lack of fear that one of their own had been left behind. "You're not at all worried that something might happen to Kevin?"

Buzz, with all his bravado and confidence, scoffed and appeared to roll his eyes at his sister's antics, as if her fear of something happening to his younger brother home alone was completely impossible.

"No, for three reasons: A, I'm not that lucky—" the younger McAllister said, smirking to himself, and Harry through of Dudley in all the corners of Buzz's expression. "Two, we use smoke detectors and D, we live on the most boring street in the whole United States of America, where nothing even remotely dangerous will ever happen. Period."

"I guess you and Kevin have a lot in common, huh?" Marie said, picking up on the way Harry's scowl deepened. She was laying on her stomach on the carpet and kicked her feet back and forth in the air. "Does that make me a wet bandit?"

"I don't think so," he said, frowning. As the movie faded out and onto commercials, He crossed his arms over his chest and looked down at her from his lofty position in Vernon's chair. "What are you doing here anyway? I'm still in trouble after Dudley's party, after you ran off. you know they blamed me for what you did?"

She considered him for a moment. "Is that why you were hiding?"

"I wasn't hiding!" Harry leaped out the chair. "It's not like I went in there because I like it."

"Oh," she said and pursed her lips. she sat up and looked out towards the hallway, where his cupboard was. She turned back to him, and her eyes seemed to zero in on something in his hair that he missed. "Did you like the cake?"

Harry spluttered in confusion. "Did I like the—no, no that's not what— I didn't even—"

"You have some in your hair," she pointed out, and this time Harry sighed and shook his head, sending a dozen rainbow sprinkles onto the carpet. She shot him an apologetic look. "I mean, it looks nice on you."

Wearily, he was reminded of the massive list of chores the Dursleys expected him to do before he got back and mentally added 'clean carpets' as he looked over at the clock. It was ten thirty; by now Dudley would already be at the pool and pretending he was the next little mermaid.

"I don't have time for this, you shouldn't even be here. I have work to do before they come back, and there's a sitter that should have been here by now..." Harry padded into the hallway to check the door, but there was nothing. "It's not like Mrs. Figg to not show up."

Of course, it wasn't like he really wanted the old woman to be there in the first place— he rather disliked her. She was stern and snappy, and he often got the impression that she rather hated children, not having any her own, but he wasn't surprised how well she got along with his relatives. In terms of their personality, Mrs. Figg and the Dursley's was a match made in heaven, and a match made in hell if Harry was concerned.

"Oh, sweater vest?" Marie rolled onto her back and watched him upside down, folding her hands on her stomach. "Yeah I saw her. She seemed kinda grouchy though, so I told her to go take a nap."

"And she listened to you?" he asked incredibly, and to his credit, she nodded. He couldn't believe that. "She's not the kind of person to just go— to take a nap because someone told her to. She doesn't even know you."

"I can be very persuasive," she shot back, crossing her arms. He didn't believe her. "Fugg… Fuc— uh, Frick… Mrs whatever seemed like she needed some beauty sleep anyway. A couple words were all it took, it was easy. You let me inside your house despite being angry at me, right? I'm just that good.."

Harry was going to argue that he didn't actually let her in, she let herself in, actually, but he had no idea how to argue with her. He didn't even know how they were having that conversation now, there was no reason for her to be there, and he had completely forgotten it in favor of watching movies with her in the living room instead of doing the work he had been assigned because of her. Behind them, the commercials on the TV stopped, and home alone continued, but Harry was hardly interested in watching anymore. He was more interested in the stranger in front of him probably lying through her teeth. for all he knew, she could have kidnapped and murdered the old woman.

He found himself watching her warily, afraid of what she would do next. "And are you going to make me take a nap too? is that what you do? invite yourself into people's houses and... do what with them?"

"What do you think I am, some sort of serial killer?" she snorted before her face got oddly serious. "Wait, no I'm the wet bandit. Do I play Harry or Marv... Harry or Marv... I mean you could be Harry since you're already a Harry but then who would be Kevin? no, no okay I got it. hold on, lemme get the voice right..."

She got up onto her feet and gestured for him to stay quiet, clearing her throat.

"It's too late for you, kid.." She hunched over and pitched her voice real low and gravely like she had smoked six packs of cigarettes every day for her entire life. "We're... I'm already in the house. I'm gonna get ya!"

Harry gave her a blank look and said nothing.

"How was that?"

He figured being honest was probably for the best. "Pretty bad."

"Oh," she sighed and stuffed her hands into her pants pockets. "I'll work on the impressions... And just stick to clogging the drain like how the real wet bandits would do. Yeah..."

"Do not," Harry said quickly, blocking her way as she tried to get to the bathroom. "You're not even supposed to be here if you damage anything else I don't even know what the Dursley's would do. I'll never see the light of day. Don't touch anything."

"Nothing?" With the same deep gravelly voice of Marv, she looked up at him with a deeply conflicted expression on her face. "But Harry, it's our calling card! All the great ones leave their mark. We're the wet bandits!"

"We're not the wet bandits," he said, crossing his arms. "In fact... I don't even know you. Where did you even come from?"

"Oh, you know, around..." She was purposely being vague, and Harry had no time for it. There was still dishes to do, and laundry to fold, beds to make and then there was the garden to weed again, and a whole other list of chores the Dursleys dumped on him because of her.

Harry turned and marched towards the kitchen, leaving her in the living room and hoping beyond hope that she'd listen to him and not touch anything at all. He took the list out of his pocket and set it down onto the counter so he could keep an eye on it. When he got to the sink and leaned down to grab a pair of rubber gloves, he glanced over his shoulder, just to check on what she was doing, before—

"Oh, my g—don't sneak up on me like that." Harry just about jumped out of his skin seeing her just a couple feet away from him. He watched as she jumped up onto the counter and sat down, right next to the sink. "What are you doing?"

"Watching?" She drew one of her legs up and rested her elbow on it, eyeing the soapy water filling up the sink. "Do they always leave you alone and make you do dishes?"

"Yeah," he muttered, pulling out a little step stool from underneath the sink. It was better than not being able to reach the plug, so now he and his home intruder were on a more even eye level. He pursed his lips and glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "Then again it's also because of the whole... thing..."

"Right... yeah.. the thing... I remember," she said, looking like she very much did not remember. After a few moments of him staring and a prolonged silence on his part, she finally clued in. "Right! yeah. Sorry about that... Do you want help with your chores?"

Harry blinked, not expecting that response but glad it came up anyway. "Um, yeah if you're willing—"

"Cool, then I can do these ones while you do dishes or whatever..." Marie hopped off the counter and snagged the list off the counter and made her way towards the laundry room.

He didn't realize she knew where the laundry room actually was, and he turned off the tap and called after her. "Wait, do you even know what you're doing—"

"Oh yeah, don't worry about it. Aunt Peanut just wants the laundry folded, right? that's easy. And I won't touch anything either so you don't have to worry."

That sounded almost suspiciously too good to be true. "You're not going to touch... anything?"

A second later, he could see her come back into the kitchen with a full basket of laundry, and set it down in the dining room. there, he could easily watch in case she did anything else... yeah, this could work out. Harry instantly felt a whole lot stressed about the whole thing as he turned back to the sink. He felt almost... pleased. Working like a slave for his aunt and uncle didn't feel so overwhelming when he had a friend to help out.

Wait—friend?

Harry paused in between scrubbing a plate and pursed his lips. Could he really consider this friendship already? Granted, he didn't have a lot of experience in that department to really tell. Harry Potter and friends really just didn't... happen. He didn't even know anything about her. She just kind of... showed up. How desperate for friends did Harry have to be for him to start considering weird kids who talk their way into his house as friendship material?

Then again, when hadn't Harry also been the weird kid? Maybe he had been judging her too harshly.

"Your name isn't actually Marie Antoinette, is it?" Harry placed a dish on the drying rack and turned around to look at her, only to freeze and stare at her openly. "What."

"What?" Marie looked back at him with her entire basket of laundry folded and done. But.. but there was absolutely no way she could have done that because there were at least a hundred different shirts and towels and—what?

"Did you just—" Harry got off his stool and walked over to the table to get a better look. Okay, well, every single piece of laundry was folded and organized. That just happened, almost like—

Like magic.

Harry narrowed his eyes and took a couple thoughtful steps backward to the sink, never tearing his eyes away from Marie and her magic folding laundry pile. Right.. magic laundry. The kind of magic laundry that the Dursleys would abhor and blame him for. The kind of impossible... weird thing... they'd get angry about.

Weird... like the girl sitting in front of him, waiting for him to say something.

"Did I do something wrong?"

"No, definitely... not..." Maybe she was just a real fast folder. Maybe he had just spent a whole lot longer cleaning that single plate than he thought. Maybe it was all in his head.

But then again, maybe... he wasn't as alone as he first thought.

"Okay..." He said slowly, getting back up on his stool. The water was still warm in the sink, and he grabbed a cup, watching her over his shoulder. "If you're done with laundry, there's... Dudley's room that needs cleaning. Usually, he just leaves his blankets and clothes on the floor so if you go in and pick things up—"

"On it!" She left the laundry on the table and made a beeline for the stairs. He was certain he didn't even tell her which room belonged to his cousin, but a few moments later she came back down declaring a job well done, in a fraction of the time any normal person could have done it.

"I have to admit," Harry said, looking over Dudley's clean, spotless room. "I have no idea how you did this so fast."

Next to him, without a hair out of place and her purple sweater without a single wrinkle, Marie shrugged. "Oh, well, you told me not to touch anything, so I just didn't."

"You didn't touch... you know, that doesn't answer my question. Actually, that only makes things worse." Harry sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose where his glasses rested. "How do you do anything without... touching anything...?"

"I mean when you put it like that..." Marie tilted her head and looked at Dudley's room. "In a way, I think a bit of me did touch things, in the metaphysical sense that, after the body ends, the mind itself extends and our will changes the environment. In that sense, I am touching everything, at all times, everywhere, and yet not at all. To touch, to feel, to make contact... if you really look closely, the atoms I'm made of, as well as the rest of the matter in the universe, and here in this room, aren't touching each other at all, but floating in close proximity, which we consider is close enough. Our nerves feel the impression of matter, and so we consider it contact even though they don't actually touch one another. It's all free-floating matter, but where does it really begin? and where does it really end? So no, Harry, I don't think I touched anything. But then I also did, and have, and am at this very moment."

Harry stared at her.

"Does that answer your question?"

There was a long pause.

"...Sure."

"Really? because you were kinda quiet there—"

"Don't worry about it."

"Are you sure? I could explain it again in more detail—"

"It's okay, I think I got it."

"Oh! good, I'm glad we're on the same page." Marie gave him a sunshiny smile, bright and warm, and it just about made him forget whatever the hell she just said. It was nice. And for a moment, they just stood there, happy.

"I.. um..." He said lamely, scratching behind his head. He gestured back downstairs. "...still have some dishes to do."

"Right." She nodded and followed after him. They still had a little while before the Dursleys would be back, and a good chunk of their list left to do. Marie scanned the list over as they walked back to the kitchen, and made her way over to the garden.

Five minutes into scrubbing another one of his uncle's coffee mugs (why did he even need this many? and why did he have to drink hot coffee with every single one of his meals? that much caffeine couldn't be healthy) Harry peeked out the kitchen window to check on Marie's progress. He had made a pretty decent dent in the dishes while she was out... not touching anything, and he had a big pile of dishes stacked up by his side. He stood up on his tiptoes to try and make out the top of her head amongst Aunt petunia's flowers, but there was nothing. No sign of a purple sweater. He braced himself against the wet countertop just in case he missed something, and—

"So I finished the garden." Came a voice directly behind him.

"Shhhh—"

Harry's grip slipped, and his arm reached out to grab something, anything, and instead hit the dishes, the mugs, what he had been working so hard on— he fell back, the stool tipping, and found a firm hand propping him back up, and another hand holding onto the one dish keeping the whole thing standing.

Heart in his throat, Harry righted himself, the tower of dishes wobbling to his side. "T-thanks—"

But he spoke a little too soon, and a single teacup, a mug, about the exact same size and shape as the one he had broken before, wobbled off the top, out of Marie's grasp, and fell towards the floor with a crash.

They looked down at the broken cup for a moment, neither of them saying anything.

Then, Harry sighed. "Damnit."

"You're gonna get in trouble for this, aren't you." Marie poked half the handle with her shoe.

There wasn't even any denying it. "Y...yeah..."

Maybe he could hide the pieces? but surely, eventually, they'd notice a serious lack in coffee mugs. it wasn't like they were identical— the green and blue leaf pattern on the side was the only one they had, and he was pretty sure Vernon had enough sense to remember if his mugs went missing.

"Hm." Marie bent down to pick up the pieces, and he was about halfway through telling her not to bother, that he'd clean it up and that it wasn't his fault, but then she did something peculiar, and Harry really didn't know what to say. He got the feeling that this was going to be something of a recurring theme, with Marie.

The cup fused itself back together in her hands. No sleight of hand, no cheap trick. He plucked the cup out of her hand, turned it over in his, put it up to the light, and still... It had fused itself back together, like magic.

Harry looked down at the cup and then back at Marie. Then, back down at the cup. "You..."

Fixed it? Can do magic? Are like me? Harry had a million and one questions, but with the sound of a car pulling up, Harry looked back up to the spot where he expected Marie to be, to tell her that his relatives were back, and it would probably be a good idea to hide, but then...

She was gone as if she had never been there in the first place, with Harry standing in the middle of the kitchen, a perfectly good coffee cup in his hands.


	3. Superheroes and Superpowers

**AN** : shorter chapters now because i've learned to be Lazy and to love myself. Arachnophobia warning! jsyk

 **Word count:** 2,777

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Chapter Three - Superheroes and Superpowers

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He had been right, the strangeness, the expected... happenings, were a reoccurring thing when Marie was around.

For Harry, at least, he found himself at the mercy of such happenings, as they happened at any moment, and often left him slightly confused and always afraid the Dursleys would see her running off. To her credit, Marie was actually quite good at her whole disappearing act, and he wasn't sure if it involved some bad luck oh his part (never seeing her go), her, darting away the second he turned is head (while also not making a sound), or some sort of invisibility, which would have been awesome, but also impossible (but then again, she was kind of impossible to begin with, so it made sense).

At the end of the day, Harry was plagued with a million questions on is mind, and the haunting fear that she could show up at any moment with him none the wiser.

One of such happenings, if perhaps more important than the others, had been on a Friday, after the Dursleys had eased a bit up on their punishments and allowed him some free time, as long as he remained out of sight. which, of course meant he was in the cupboard again, because out of sight always meant the cupboard. If not that, then the attic, but someone would have heard the commotion it would have taken to get the ladder down, and the trouble just wasn't worth it with dudley's tenth still fresh in their minds.

Between homework, chores, dealing with the Dursleys, Harry's free time was pretty normal. He had his books, comics, toys and the like, (usually passed down from Dudley when he had no interest in them anymore). He had a fondness for his little medieval figurines, the knight in shining armor, the princess with her rosy smile, and the dark knight on his white horse, his bow drawn.

Harry had few props to play with as he sent the white rider on a gallop, imaging a tense battle scene, rite with conflict, but he did what he could. A row of toilet paper tubes was his forest, a ring of stones as the rider's obstacles, and among the scene, another knight, dressed in red, wielding a great sword from atop his crimson steed. The paint had long peeled off the little plastic figurine, but the knight stood as an imposing enemy.

Harry took his white rider and circled the red knight, bow drawn. The battle was tense- the white knight kept their distance, struck when they could, dancing around the reach of the red knight's sword. when dawn broke, the white rider's arrow shot true, and pierced the red knight's armor, striking his heart, and down he went. The kingdom erupted in cheers, and the white knight was crowned the new ruler, beloved by all.

He took the little gold wedding band he had found in the garden, and crowned the victor, the sounds of the people ringing in his ears. In his little cupboard, the world outside was a million years away. He could imagine rolling fields of green grass and horse drawn carriages, people who spoke in languages of old and a kingdom of magic and mystery. When he had his time like this to himself, he could imagine what freedom felt like. He could-

 _knock, knock._

Right, well, spell ruined. Harry groaned and hid his figurines, expecting Vernon or aunt Petunia about to tell him to do another thing for them. What he didn't expect, were the wide grey eyes of Marie looking down at him through a crack in the door. "W-what are you doing here?"

She opened the door further, poking her head in to get a better look inside. "Better question is, what are so many _spiders_ doing in here? Either they know something we don't, or there's some tasty, tasty flies hanging around. Or you feed them. Do you feed them?"

"Sssh! Uncle Vernon is right in the other room- how did you even get inside without them hearing you?" Harry grabbed her arm and pulled her inside, ignoring the surprised yelp she let out, and shut the cupboard door behind her.

With such little space, he had to scooch back as far as he could to let her sit down, and he pushed a couple boxes out of the way so she wasn't cramped. Somehow, she didn't seem the least bit bothered. "So this is your crib, huh...?."

"Um, yeah..." It occurred to him that he had never had anyone in his cupboard, not even Dudley (who would probably fit in theory but not in practice). Harry didn't really know what kids his age did when they had friends in their rooms, let alone their cupboard under the stairs. "Do you... like comics?"

Her eyes lit up. "I do!"

There wasn't much room with the two of them squeezed inside; Harry reached around her to dig up a stack of pages stuffed between the mattress and the wall. Admittedly, he didn't have many to share-a recurring theme in Harry's history was that most of his things had been handed down to him, or scavenged from Dudley. What he could have for himself was well loved and worn, held onto by him for years, rarely ever seeing new copies of being handled by another pair of hands.

There was a hesitance in his expression that perhaps she picked up. There was something deeply sacred about the comics in his hands, but he passed them along anyway. The first one she opened up, was a copy of the Incredible Spider-Man. It was one of the more common copies, a duplicate from Dudleys collection. There had to be about a million of them everywhere, but Harry version was bent around the corners and missing a couple staples. He knew the pages by heart, traced the words over under his fingers until he could absorb the lines and color. Whenever he had a bad day or felt trapped, small, or invisible, he would go to Spider-Man, and he could imagine a life where the wind whistled through his hair as buildings swept past him; where radioactive spiders could grant the gift of great power and great responsibility.

Spider-Man was perhaps one of his favourite superheroes, if only because he came from the same place Harry did, more or less, and wasn't that the most important? Superman was from another world, batman was a billionaire- they were compelling heroes but they weren't _Harry_. They weren't just another kid. At some point, sure, Clark Kent had thought he was just another farm boy, and Bruce Wayne... had parents. In a way, Harry could relate to Batman, but all he had known had been the Dursleys, and their punishments and severity had never made him want to don a bat costume and fight crime. It just made him want to keep everyone from getting angry at him and be alone.

Well, for the most part.

"If the webbing comes from his wrists does that mean there's glands under his skin that secretes the string or do his tendons just create a sticky substance. Does it ONLY happen when he does the very specific wrist thingy- can he control it with his mind like how you can salivate on que or does it just happen on reflex? what if he goes to pick something up and flicks his wrist and it just thwips out? And yeah, thwips out is a verb, as in ' _to thwip_ ,' it makes sense, don't look at me like that."

Harry shook his head and looked down at the comic in his hands. He was starting to get a little more used to Marie and... whatever it was going on in her head. He passed her an issue of The Swamp Thing and an issue of Uncanny X-Men. "These ones are really good."

"Do you think the swamp thing ever like, goes to the gym?" Marie laid back and stretched her legs out, flipping to the next page as her grey eyes roved over the detailed biceps of the mutated scientist. "With arms like that you'd think he lifts."

"Between plotting his revenge against his would-be killer and being a plant, I don't think so, no." Harry paused, watching her as she got further through the story. "Then again, I don't know if there's much to do in a swamp. Probably lots of logs and alligators to carry, since it takes place in America."

"Gators are like, the eagles of the bayou," Marie murmured, nodding in agreement. Agreement to what, Harry wasn't quite sure, but it sort of sounded like it made sense if he squinted.

She flipped another page and Harry watched her read a passage about the plant who thought he was a man-when the real Alec holland died in a fiery explosion, and the swamp thing that emerged was only a pale imitation, burdened with memories that weren't his own. He wondered what she thought about it; if the werewolves, vampires and plant magic was too much, but when she finished the issue and looked around in his collection for the next issue, he found himself oddly pleased she wanted to read more.

"Where's the rest?"

"That's all there is," he answered, shuffling his comics back into a pile. At her distressed expression, he ducked his head. "Well, uh-comics usually cost a bit to buy, and Dudley always gets most of them."

Marie stared at him for a moment. "Does he have more in his room?"

"Yes, but I don't think he'd-" And then she was crawling out of the cupboard and climbing the stairs before he could even finish. A second later, he was climbing the stairs after her, terrified she was going to do something, or prompt the Dursleys to do something.

He found her hovering outside the large, spare bedroom, one hand on the doorknob. She said nothing at first as she heard him approach, but her hand twisted the knob once, twice, as he came to stand beside her.

"Harry." She stared into the big empty room, then back at him. "That's a lot of space."

"It is," he agreed, not liking where this was going.

"Harry," she said again, staring back into the guest bedroom, which could have easily fit seven cupboards and everything harry ever owed, ten times over. "How many spiders do you think could fit in here?"

"I… I don't know?" He was expecting her to ask why he slept in a cupboard when they had extra space. But the look in her eyes was strangely focused as she turned and quickly ran towards the stairs. He followed after her, taking two stairs at once, and ignored the sound of Aunt petunia telling him to slow down in favor of catching Marie before she was seen.

But she was already crawling out of his cupboard by the time he was down. How did she even move so fast? Harry had to add teleportation to his list of suspected Marie getaway talents, but he stopped in his tracks when she stood back up and saw her arms.

"Harry look," she said, wiggling her fingers as eight fat spiders sat all the way up to her elbows. "I'm spiderman."

"That's-that's not… How did you even find them all so fast…?" He stared at her for a long, hard time. Eventually, and with great effort, he kept himself from backing away. One of the spiders wiggled its abdomen and turned around in circled as she smiled down at it. "That's not how it happened in the comics."

"One of them could be radioactive, you don't know that." she held up one of her arms and urged the closest spider to crawl across her finger. "Do you want to be spiderman too?"

"There's only supposed to be one," he shot back, and watched as it spun a little web at the tip of her finger and fell towards the floor.

Marie gasped and tried to catch it before it ran away, but the other spiders made it difficult to move. "No! Stop!"

It ran towards the kitchen where Aunt Petunia was cooking and Harry winced as it crawled under the door. Marie was stricken, and her seven remaining spiders crawled around on her purple sweater, agitated.

"Where's she going?!"

"It fine!" Harry said quickly, cutting her off, before she moved and the rest started crawling everywhere. "I've got it!

"Harry what are you going on about?" aunt Petunia called from the kitchen, clearly agitated that he was speaking so loudly-and then he made it to the door, and Aunt petunia's footsteps slowed, followed by an ear-piercing shriek of terror. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUGH! GET IT OUT! GET IT OUT!"

"Slow down!" Harry ran through the kitchen hunched over, trying to catch the fat spider as it ran like it was possessed, across the tiles, over his Aunt's shoes, into the dining room, and back again.

When his hands finally clasped around the spider, Petunia was up on one of the countertops, pale and huffing from lack of breath. "Kill it! Kill it!"

"I'll just toss it outside!" he argued back, and he could feel its legs wiggling in his hands as he moved to the back door.

Before he could do anything about it though, Marie was there, by his side, and leaned over to open the door for him. He jumped, immediately more concerned about his aunt, staring in their direction, and the girl who _should not have been in his house to begin with_.

"Thanks for catching her instead of killing her," Marie said expectantly, waiting for him to walk out the back door and set the spider free. She seemed completely unconcerned about Harry's aunt slowly easing herself off the countertop. "I'm sure the spider really appreciates it."

With a second wave of dawning horror, Harry realized she wasn't covered in spiders anymore.

(And there was just something about that realization that made Harry realize, yeah, that was just the kind of person Marie was, apparently. When she wasn't covered in spiders, _then_ he would worry.)

"Where… what did you do with the…" He didn't even want to say it. Honestly? He didn't even really want to know. But Petunia was still losing it, and shrieked at him to close the door before the spider crawled back inside and bit her. To be quite honest, in all the panic, he hadn't even considered that as an option.

"Get it over with!" Petunia snapped, her eyes bearing down into him, and completely glazing over the spot where Marie was. Why wasn't she commenting on her? Why he feel like he was the only person on the planet who noticed she was there?

"Yes, Aunt Petunia…" Harry brought the spider over to the little garden he had fished that ring out of, and it occurred to him that all of the Marie happenings only ever started when he touched that ring. Every single time.

He turned to the girl standing right behind him, and stared at her.

"Can the others… see you?" He asked, and for once he felt like he was actually onto something, actually knowing where this line of questioning was going to go, because with Marie, he had always been so uncertain.

The smile he received in response was playful, and the apprehension he felt blooming in his chest died down a little. She was still his friend, despite all the… madness. The weirdness. _The happenings_. "I mean, where's the fun in that?"

And of course he expected her to say that. Because the trickster, malevolent child-entity before him wouldn't have been Marie, if she didn't somehow find some amusement in that.

Harry silently added 'invisibility' to his list of Marie-related superpowers, before he trashed the whole thing and figured, trying to figure her out would just be a waste of time to begin with.

"I have the invisible man comic somewhere in my collection," he sighed, trudging back up to the back door. Her grey eyes glittered, and she followed after him, eager as always. "We can read it together, or something."

"Or something," she laughed, and then walked past Aunt Petunia without a care in the world, like his Aunt wasn't even there. Like a ghost. "I'll get some popcorn?"

Harry didn't even want to know if she could summon food out of the air. He was that done.

"Fine, but keep the spiders out of it."

"Aw, no fair!"

Maybe having an invisible, impossible friend wasn't so bad after all.


End file.
